


stay with me

by distortions



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Time Travel Fix-It, i did the best i could yall, this is really cheesy honestly just self-indulgent cheese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 13:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18829420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distortions/pseuds/distortions
Summary: Endgame fix-it of sorts:In which Steve appears on the bench, but there is something very very different about him, and Bucky gets the happy ending he deserves.





	stay with me

**Author's Note:**

> i was. . . disappointed to say the least abt steve, sam, and bucky's treatment at the end of Endgame. also, when old!steve appeared on the bench, my brain knew what was coming, but my heart screamed "please be pre-serum steve!" so now i'm indulging myself. this is it. thanks for coming to my TED talk.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

A wave of nostalgia. “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Bucky jokes back, smiling.

When they hug, Bucky frowns into Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.”

Bucky knew; of course he did. He didn’t know anything about this time travel business, but he’d know Steve blind; he’d have to at this point. Inside and out, Bucky just knew him. So of course he knew what was coming after Bruce counted to five.

Nothing was coming. Because Steve was going to stay in the past with Peggy. Bucky wasn’t a fool. He’d seen the compass Steve still carries to this day, and he knows what’s inside of it. He knew it back then, and he knew it now. Honestly? Bucky was kind of happy for him. Steve deserves to be happy, and Bucky knew he wouldn’t be able to give Steve what he really wanted, like a family, or a peaceful quiet life: not if Steve is hanging out with a wanted criminal like Bucky. And there was also, something else: the lack of affection on Steve’s part, not like Bucky had ever really minded. It was just something he’d accepted; nothing changed between them since the war. Since their childhood, even. They remained just as they always were: friends.

_Stay with me, Stevie. ‘Til the end of the line, right?_

While watching Steve step onto the platform and disappear, Bucky felt selfish. He didn’t want this. He wanted Steve to be happy, but not like this. This felt like. . . Like nothing to him - a numbness. Similar to the numbness he’d been living with while under HYDRA, but almost worse because this time, he actually knows what’s wrong: he knows that Steve isn’t with him. How could nothingness hurt him so badly after everything else already, he wondered to himself.

And then, there was something.

A slim man was sitting on the bench a little ways away from them. It had only been about seven seconds since he last saw Steve, but this Steve, he hadn’t seen in over 70 years.

There he sat; about 110 pounds and a few inches shorter than Bucky was now used to.

Bucky looks in awe, and Sam turns.

“Is that-“

“Yeah.”

Because Bucky would truly know Steve blind; especially the Steve he had patched up after every scrimmage the man could find himself in and the one Bucky sat by every time he was on his deathbed sick as ever. The only person outside his family that Bucky would pray for, even if he didn’t really have a need for God out there himself. The one he had taken on double dates to the dance hall, the one he had lived with and came home to.

The one he fell in love with.

“Did you wanna. . . Like, go first?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky breathed out but stayed standing in place. Sam claps Bucky in the shoulder, smiling at him.

“Well go on ahead, what’re you waiting for, sucker?”

Bucky smiles back at Sam. Sam, whom he grew to appreciate. Bucky could see exactly what Steve saw in Sam: a man with a heart of gold. A snarky man with a heart of gold to be more specific, but what else can you expect from a person Steve Rogers choses to hang out with? “Thanks,” he replied, and started walking towards the bench.

“Stevie.”

“Bucky.”

Steve stands to hug Bucky and Bucky is instantly thrown back to 1937. Bony shoulders, thin arms wrapped around his body, and Steve, now shorter, with his face buried into Bucky’s chest. Bucky wraps his own arms around the slender man, breathing in Brooklyn after sunset from his hair.

“You were only gone for seven seconds, you missed me that much huh?” It felt just like old times, this teasing.

“Yeah, Buck, of course,” Steve laughs, breathy, just as it was before the serum. The same one Bucky would secretly flush at when he heard it.

He’d have done anything to hear it again.

They pull away from each other and Bucky can finally get a closer look at Steve. He looks the exact same as the night before Bucky’s shipment off to war.

Bucky’s heart warmed instantly, it was just-

Indescribable.

“I. . . I didn’t think you were coming back,” Bucky starts. “Thought you were gonna stay with Peggy.”

“I was,” Steve stops to think. “But how could I leave my best guy hanging over here?” He says with an older accent and smiles, nudging Bucky with his shoulder. Bucky chuckles and looks away, slightly flushed. It’d be strange for anyone to see Steve’s suave personality come from this younger Steve’s body, but not for Bucky, who had insisted Steve practice his lines on him back in the day. Was it more to help Steve or more for Bucky himself? Well, Bucky had always been a little selfish.

“In all honesty, I did consider it. I went back, returned the stone, and I saw her, y’know. She was beautiful, even kept a picture of me on her desk. The me before the serum, actually,” he smiles, remembering. Bucky continues to listen intently.

“But you know what else she had in her office? Pictures of her husband and their two kids. Really took me back.” A pause. “I remember her telling me that she already lived her life and she wanted me to live mine. She was already happy. I couldn’t take that from her, y’know?” Bucky nods.

“I just,” Steve hesitates. “I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be there. It wasn’t my time or my place. . . This is; here, with you.” Steve brings Bucky in for another hug, which Bucky returns silently, digesting the words.

With him. Steve chose to stick with him.

“I mean - you and Sam and the gang of course!” Steve adds in, pulling back quickly. Bucky laughs.

“Honestly Buck, I’m so sorry I even considered it. I guess I just. . . Seeing her the first time really threw me off, y’know? Remembering her. . . Made me momentarily forget what really matters now.”

“That’s alright, Steve. I’m just glad you’re back, you punk. Thought I wasn’t ever gonna see you again and I - I never thought I’d ever see  _this_ you again.” Bucky looks the man up and down again. “I mean, not that I mind or anything! It’s just. . . Really nice to see you again, especially like this, Stevie.”

“Oh, yeah.” Steve looks down at himself too. “We learned earlier on that time can travel through your body, instead of your body through time. We had one hell of a time with it when Scott was first testing out this stuff.” A laugh. “I guess I’m a sentimental guy. Seeing the photo of me on Peggy’s desk made me miss the simpler and times and I just thought. . . Okay wait wait wait, before you freak out, I’m sure modern medicine can fix all my pre-serum issues, don’t worry.” Steve says quickly, seeing the look of worry on Bucky’s face. “And if it can’t, then Shuri will!”

They laugh in agreement.

“But as I was saying, Peggy was right. I should move on from the past and live my own life, and I know this is selfish of me but I thought. . . Well I mean there’s Strange and Danvers and T’Challa now to save the world and also, I thought it’d be easier to just live my life if I was not Captain America anymore. I just don’t. . . Really want to do this anymore.”

“It’s okay to be selfish for once in your life, Steve. You’ve done enough, you don’t need to prove anything else; never did in the first place. You’ve done good, so so good.” Bucky comfortingly clasps Steve’s shoulder. “You just saved the fucking world. I think that’s a pretty fine way to retire.”

Steve beams at Bucky. Bucky finds it almost blinding, and his heart aches.

“I’m gonna be selfish just one more time. For now.” Steve starts.

“Oh? How so?”

“Stay with me, Buck. Or - or let me stay with you.”

“Always.” Was Bucky’s immediate answer. He didn't even need a second to think about it, that would always be his answer to Steve. “You don't even need to ask, Steve. ‘Til the end of the line, right?” He grins at the smaller man.

Steve pauses and smiles hesitantly. “Yeah, but also,” Steve gets on his tippy toes and brings Bucky down to his height. He presses his lips to Bucky’s, and Bucky eyes are wide open, looking down at Steve in shock.

Steve lets go and pulls back. “I kinda meant it in a selfish way. Like, where you’re mine and no one else’s.”

“I - I - yeah. Yeah, I’d love that, Stevie.” Bucky lifts Steve up and pulls him in for another kiss. It’s sweet but also hungry, and it’s exactly how Bucky had imagined it many times before.

“I can’t believe  _I’m_ the oblivious one here, how did you know I. . . When. . .” Bucky wanders off in thought, trying to pinpoint recent hints he might’ve given off. He’s been pretty discrete if he says so himself.

“Time travel, baby. I went back and looked at our life from before your fall and my crash. Wanted to remember who I was before. Now I know I was a complete idiot for not noticing earlier.” They laugh.

“I love you, Bucky. I always have, even if I didn’t know exactly how I did before. I want to stay with you, I know that now.”

“Aww, what a sap you are, Rogers.”

“Ugh, you fucking jerk. Just say ‘I love you’ back and we can move from this bench and I can give Sam this shield.”

Bucky laughs. It feels so natural, the way things are coming together now. “I love you too, Steve. I always have have, and I’ve always known it. I’ll always stay with you, if you’ll have me. I’ll follow you anywhere if you ask. Told you before, didn’t I? That I’d follow the little kid from Brooklyn into the jaws of death? Well I guess now I’m following him into retirement.”

“Yeah, we’re like thirty years overdue for retirement. Now where’s Sam? He needs to take this shield and then we can go on some old timer cruise or something,” Steve jokes. He knows the world still needs to rebuild; Bucky will certainly be helping out back in Wakanda, and he’ll be right there with him.

“He’s back over there with Bruce, but just two more things before we go,” Bucky sweeps Steve up for another kiss. Soft, against his forehead, then nose, then neck, and then catching his lips. Steve can’t blame him, he’s been waiting a while for this.

Steve returns the kiss and runs his hands through Bucky’s hair, wrapping his legs around Bucky’s waist.

When they part again, Bucky asks “Last thing: how’d you get the shield back?”

“Time travel works in mysterious ways.” Steve replies, shrugging.

Bucky puts Steve down and they walk back, hand in hand, while Steve carries the shield in the other hand.

When they find Sam, he looks at their intertwined fingers and then he’s absolutely beaming at them. “Good to see you again, Steve.”

Steve gives Sam the shield and Sam cries. Steve tried to comfort him, Bucky takes a few photos before congratulating Sam. Bruce finds the three of them soon after before freaking out about the younger looking Steve.

“Bruce! Bruce, it’s alright. This is exactly how things should be. I’m fine, this is exactly how I wanted things,” Steve assures him.

“Yeah,” Bucky concludes. “Me too.” Because Bucky was okay with whatever comes after this, so long as Steve is by his side.

“‘Til the end of the line.” Steve softly whispers to Bucky, rubbing his thumb along the other's warm hand.

“End of the line,” Bucky repeats back lovingly.

**Author's Note:**

> i had to leave for a school trip the day right after i watched Endgame, so 90% of this was written on my phone's notes app while i was on my 8 hour flight. i got back recently and just finished it, but i'm still jet lagged as hell lol so pls do lmk if there are any typos or anything!!
> 
> every time i think abt steve's Endgame ending i'm just ugh ready to throw some mf hands so i tried to fix it as well as i could lmao pls feel free to hmu on my tumblr @kuhais for anything!!
> 
> kudos and comments feed me and are appreciated as well <3 ;v;


End file.
